India-Russia Divorce and its impact on Indian defence

[PaklovesTurkiye]

CPEC lol another China lap dog in the making. Africa became China's bus boy through stadium diplomacy, Pakistan will be the one calling China 'Massa' after it.

I love seeing desperation on Pakistani faces. Reminds me of how privileged I am to be leading a life in India with its abundant opportunities.

And we don't even require aid like Pakistan. Intact we are banning NGO's foreign funding.

Pakistan will continue to be China's 'boy'.

Your are Uncle Sam's lackey in region thats why your brother Russia decided to go with Pakistan....

Good for Pakistan.

Very curious and eager to see the good future of Russia and Pakistan.

....All the best to India too....

 

[Centurion2016]

I think Pakistanis don't realise how Russian might has fallen both economic and military wise last ten years..

Russian GDP is half of India.

Without Indian money in future their weapons Industry will shrink

India is buying more from the west and China is I dengious weapons now.

Russia needs a cash cow to sell its weapons

Good luck Pakistan

 

[wiseone2]

I think Pakistanis don't realise how Russian might has fallen both economic and military wise last ten years..

Russian GDP is half of India.

Without Indian money in future their weapons Industry will shrink

India is buying more from the west and China is I dengious weapons now.

Russia needs a cash cow to sell its weapons

Good luck Pakistan

Pakistanis know that they are isolated with china

 

[spectribution]

Your are Uncle Sam's lackey in region thats why your brother Russia decided to go with Pakistan....


....All the best to India too....

From your country's experience USA treated you like a BDSM slave.

Rather painful I must say.

Too bad you're being cuckolded.

Anyway whatever floats your boat.

 

[Sanchez]

I think Pakistanis don't realise how Russian might has fallen both economic and military wise last ten years..

Russian GDP is half of India.

Without Indian money in future their weapons Industry will shrink

India is buying more from the west and China is I dengious weapons now.

Russia needs a cash cow to sell its weapons

Good luck Pakistan

Indians are short sighted with Russians. Mother Russia has plenty of resouces to dig out and lives like a queen. Given a long time friendship with Russia and now India sneaks towards a declining power that is hostile to Russia. You will get what you deserve from Russia.

India is now best valued by the US as a counter weight against China. It's geat, isn't it?

 

[wiseone2]

Indians are short sighted with Russians. Mother Russia has plenty of resouces to dig out and lives like a queen. Given a long time friendship with Russia and now India sneaks towards a declining power that is hostile to Russia. You will get what you deserve from Russia.

India is now best valued by the US as a counter weight against China. It's geat, isn't it?

natural resources alone does not make a country rich

 

[GumNaam]

India getting a talaaq? Who will take care of her now?

the afghani mayor of two roads ghani will.

 

[dadeechi]

Russia’s New Approach to Pakistan: All About Arms Sales
It’s not retaliation against India for its U.S. outreach. Moscow is seeking out new markets in tough economic times.

By Sanjay Pulipaka for The Diplomat
September 28, 2016
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Recently, Russia initiated its first ever joint military exercise with Pakistan. A few months earlier, in a first, Russia agreed to sell Mi-35 attack helicopters to Pakistan. Numerous reports also suggest that Pakistan is reportedly in talks with Russia for the purchase of Su-35 combat aircraft. The sale of defense equipment to and military exercises with Pakistan indicate a significant shift in Russian foreign policy.

To state that Russia and Pakistan were Cold War enemies is an understatement. Approximately 14,000 Soviet soldiers were killed and more than 35,000 were wounded in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. Many of these causalities were the consequence of mujahideen forces that received significant support from Pakistan and the United States. Even after the end of the Cold War, Pakistan was an important U.S. ally. As a consequence, the defense relationship between Russia and Pakistan was very minimal. That seems to be changing now.

The perception that evolving India-U.S. defense relationship, at the expense of India-Russia defense trade, may have contributed to the shifts in Russian policy toward Pakistan is erroneous. Contrary to popular opinion, India has spent more money on importing Russian military equipment in the recent past. Calculations based on data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) show that from 1994-2004 India purchased approximately $11.43 billion worth of defense equipment from Russia. After the India-U.S. nuclear agreement in 2005 until 2014, arms exports from Russia to India amounted to $20.70 billion. From 1999 to 2003, India received about 23 percent of Russian defense exports, which increased to 24 percent in 2005-2009 and to 39 percent in 2011-2015. In terms of both absolute numbers and as a percentage of Russian exports, India has procured more from Russia in the last ten years than the preceding period. Higher rates of economic growth and growing security concerns prompted India to diversify its defense acquisitions from various countries including the United States. However, such diversification did not happen at the expense of India-Russia defense trade.

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The assessment that the shifts in Indian foreign policy caused the changes in Russian approach toward Pakistan is also based on the assumption that Russia always factored India’s security concerns into its defense trade. An examination of the SIPRI data does not bear out this conjecture. For instance, the figure below clearly demonstrates that for a majority of years during 1992-2006, Russia exported more arms to China than to India in terms of value. Only since 2007 has India consistently overtaken China.



The Russian sale of defense equipment happened in spite of a clear understanding that China and India have a border dispute. The rapid decline in China-Russia defense trade after 2006 is a consequence of significant enhancement in the domestic capacities of China’s defense industry, not a conscious strategic choice by Moscow. Further, it should be noted that Russia continues to sell critical defense equipment to China. For instance, Russia has agreed to sell 24 Sukhoi Su-35 aircraft to China. More recently, news agencies have reported that the development of the Chinese fifth-generation J-20 stealth fighter may have been possible only with substantial Russian assistance. Clearly Russia and China have been collaborating very closely on defense and security issues. Such mutually profitable defense cooperation between Russia and China continues in spite of anxiety in India about growing power asymmetry in favor of China.

Similar rational calculations, rather than a sense of hurt over India’s policy, are guiding Russian policy toward Pakistan. Energy resources and defense equipment constitute critical components in Russian exports. Oil prices, which touched about $140 per barrel in 2008, are now hovering around $45 per barrel. This dramatic fall in oil prices generated stress on Russian exports. On the defense exports front, there are long term challenges. Along with India, important destination countries for Russian arms exports include China, Algeria, Vietnam, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Iran, Syria, Myanmar, and Egypt. Many of these countries are witnessing shifts in their domestic politics, and some are altering their external postures.

During 1999-2003, China received 44 percent of Russian defense exports, which declined to 35 percent in 2005-2009 and reduced further to 11 percent during 2011-2015. China, which was a significant recipient of Russian military equipment, has built domestic defense manufacturing capacities and has now emerged as the third largest defense exporter in the world.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s relations with the United States have witnessed dramatic improvements in the recent past. Washington lifted the embargo on the sale of lethal military equipment to Vietnam during President Barack Obama’s visit to Hanoi this year. Vietnam will be looking to purchase high-end defense equipment from the United States in near future. Similarly, with the U.S. completely lifting sanctions, Myanmar will be looking for diversified military relationships with Western countries.

Venezuela’s economic collapse has triggered a humanitarian crisis due to severe food shortages. Given the scale of the crisis, it is doubtful if Venezuela will purchase defense equipment with the same vigor as it used to do in the second half of the last decade. Syria is experiencing a civil war and Russia had to step in with its military to support a friendly regime in Damascus. The intervention in Syria also served as an advertisement for Russia weapon-systems. However, Syria is still some distance away from genuinely purchasing Russian military hardware in large numbers. In Egypt, Russia has to compete not only with the United States but also with the other European powers such as France. Similarly, in Iran, which was under sanctions till recently, Russia will have to contend with the enthusiasm that China has been displaying.

Not surprisingly, given these factors, Russian arms exports have started to show a downward trend since 2011.



To stem further decline, Russia is working its way back into old markets, such as Iraq, as well as expanding into new markets and sees Pakistan as a lucrative prospective client. Pakistan is the seventh largest importer of defense equipment in the world with China and the United States as its leading suppliers. The ecosystem to sustain a domestic defense industry is still in its infancy in Pakistan and its relations with the United States in the recent past have been experiencing some strain. Therefore, there seems to be a growing convergence between Pakistan’s need to diversify its military procurement and Russia’s need to find new defense markets. It is this convergence that has prompted the shift in Russian policy toward Pakistan.

In doing so, Russia is taking a calculated risk that India will not cancel existing defense contracts in large numbers as retaliation for Russia’s new policy toward Pakistan. This bet is based on three assumptions. One, decades of defense purchases in large quantities have ensured that India will be dependent on the Russian defense industry for spares and maintenance for a considerable length of time. Two, since India is not a member of the United Nations Security Council, it will hesitate to antagonize a veto power that had come to its rescue on earlier occasions. The mere threat of censure on international platforms for alleged violation of human rights may compel India to reach out to Russia. Third, Moscow will continue to offer the sale of high-tech strategic defense equipment, which the United States and others may be reluctant to part with.

Given these developments, India need not feel guilty about failing to respond to the challenges confronting the Russian defense trade due to shifts in procurement patterns of countries such as China and others – that is neither the function of India nor should it be the objective. Instead of indulging in unwarranted self-flagellation, it would be prudent for India to focus on using trilateral and multilateral frameworks to create financial constraints for Pakistan’s defense imports. More importantly, a quick progress on strengthening domestic defense manufacturing is an urgent necessity.

Sanjay Pulipaka works as a Senior Consultant with the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi. The views expressed here are personal.

http://thediplomat.com/2016/09/russias-new-approach-to-pakistan-all-about-arms-sales/

India-Russia bilateral: Warm, a bit cold too
Thursday, 29 September 2016 | Rajesh Singh | in Edit
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New relationships are being forged across the world that seemed impossible only a few years ago. So, India shouldn’t be alarmed with the growing Russia-Pakistan ties. But it must certainly remain alert

Towards the end of 1955, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, visited India, and received a rousing welcome from the Indians led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. He also dropped in at Srinagar, where he is supposed to have dramatically said at a meeting that the Indians had to just call out if they ever faced danger in Kashmir from outside forces; the Soviets were within hearing distance and would be there to help. Whether this is true or not, it’s certain that Khrushchev did take a position on Kashmir which had deeply satisfied New Delhi.

Sixty-one years down the line, the Russians came further close to hearing distance. Days ago, they were in Pakistan, conducting their first-ever joint military exercise with the the Pakistan Army there. But it’s doubtful if they heard — or at any rate perceived — the call of discomfort from the Indians over the development. They had every intention of conducting the exercise in Azad Kashmir (Azad Kashmir). It was billed as a “counter-terrorism joint exercise” and the information was put on Russia’s official news agency, TASS’s website. Following the Uri attack, TASS deleted the information from its website and Russia issued a statement saying, “The only venue is Cherat. All reports alleging the drill taking place at the High Altitude Military School in Rattu are erroneous and mischievous.”

Nobody here was fooled by the explanation. TASS puts out material given by the ruling party and it is unimaginable that it would have gone so wrong on a sensitive issue such as this. The Uri attack, in which Pakistan’s involvement is clear, may have compelled Moscow to opt out of Azad Kashmir, but the joint exercise went on nevertheless elsewhere.

It’s safe to assume that, had the Uri incident not happened, the military collaboration between the Russians and the Pakistanis would have been on display in Azad Kashmir. Uri or no Uri, the Indian position on Azad Kashmir is known to the Russians who have officially supported New Delhi’s stand. Despite this, why had they even contemplated the exercise there? Indeed, given the India- Pakistan tensions, should Moscow not have been more sensitive to Indian concerns and desisted from the collaboration on Pakistani soil?

The Russians have come a long way not just since 1955 but also since 2010, when Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s Prime Minister, had announced his country was against developing strategic and military relations with Pakistan because that could impact relations with its all-weather friend, India. But only five years later, Russia and Pakistan signed a landmark defence deal, under which Russia was to supply four Mi-35 attack helicopters to Pakistan. This followed visits by Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif to Russia and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu’s trip to Pakistan. The agreement signalled the lifting of a Russian embargo on the supply of defence material to Pakistan.

Given the long and fruitful history of New Delhi-Moscow relations, the reaction from our end has been muted. The Indian establishment has taken solace from Moscow’s condemnation of the Uri attack and the mention of “Pakistan’s territory” in the official communiqué Russia put out on the incident. But while there is no need for Indians to be overly jittery, it would be foolish of them to brush aside the growing Russia-Pakistan collaboration as having little impact on India-Russia ties. India has to come out of its comfort zone, see the writing on the wall and not be misled by Russia-apologists who believe that Moscow will never cross the red line. The days of Mera joota hai Japani and Awara hoon bonhomie are gone. Realpolitik and not mushy consideration determines interests of nations and their courses of action.

And yet, there is no need to write obituaries of the India-Russia bilateral. The defence cooperation built over the years between the two is deep-rooted both in terms of the vast array of Russian military equipment India possesses and engagements in the area of civil nuclear operations. Also, it’s only now that Western nations represented in the United Nations Security Council as permanent members, have begun to back India; Russia has been doing it for decades. Instead of viewing the growing Pakistan-Russia relations as a snub, New Delhi must see it in the context of changing global equations — while remaining alert all the time.

What are these equations? The first, and arguably the most important, is the creation of space within Pakistan for Russia to occupy. The United States of America is (even if at a glacial pace) distancing itself from Pakistan, whom it had once dubbed as its most important “non-Nato ally”. Over the years, the US has realised that Islamabad and its Generals have been duplicitous in dealing with the Americans even as they received large amounts from the US treasury. Congressman Ted Poe, who is one of the movers of a recent Bill to declare Pakistan a terror-sponsoring state, remarked that the US had been paying Pakistan to betray it, when Pakistan would do it for free!

Washington, DC, contrary to general impression, has been slashing monetary help to Pakistan over the years. According to the Congressional Research Service Data figures, total security-related aid has fallen from $1.28 billion in 2011 to $0.32 billion in 2016, and economic help has come down from $1.19 billion in 2011 to $0.42 billion. In the most recent incident, the US held back $300 million as military aid. With the US ‘withdrawal’, Russia believes it has an opportunity to fill the vacuum. While Pakistan gets military hardware which is becoming increasingly difficult to come by from the US, the Russians get a strategic toehold in the region.

The second equation is to do with the warming of the Russia-China relationship. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia has realised it can take on the US more effectively by tying up with the other growing power. The tandem has been seen in dealing with the affairs of Iran, Syria and much of West Asia. Russia is also looking at its partnership with China in the context of the West seeking to expand Nato’s reach right up to Russia’s doorstep. And with China on board, could Pakistan have been far behind?

The third is to do with India’s diversification of sources for its military requirement. It no longer looks to Moscow to meet its demands, but has robust arrangements with the US, Israel and France — and these now go beyond defence. Russia has been for long India’s biggest defence supplier, but it now has to contend with the US snapping at its heels. In fact, in the three years leading to 2014, nearly 40 per cent of the money India spent on defence imports went to the Americans, while the Russian cornered 30 per cent. This has prompted Russia to explore other markets, and Pakistan is as good as any.

(The writer is Opinion Editor, The Pioneer)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/india-russia-bilateral-warm-a-bit-cold-too.html

 

[Jlaw]

jeeeeee so why hasnt even India reverse engineer anything- and y would u need any1's help to do it

i know eh? indians always acuse China of copy n paste but yet they cannot even do any of it. in fact, how come very few countries can make automobiles to compete with BMW? just buy every model of BMW and copy n paste it. Just like that! easy as hell right @Götterdämmerung

 

[wiseone2]

i know eh? indians always acuse China of copy n paste but yet they cannot even do any of it. in fact, how come very few countries can make automobiles to compete with BMW? just buy every model of BMW and copy n paste it. Just like that! easy as hell right @Götterdämmerung

it is cheaper to buy a BMW than reverse engineer it

 

[fitpOsitive]

I think Pakistanis don't realise how Russian might has fallen both economic and military wise last ten years..

Russian GDP is half of India.

Without Indian money in future their weapons Industry will shrink

India is buying more from the west and China is I dengious weapons now.

Russia needs a cash cow to sell its weapons

Good luck Pakistan

Dont you think the case is similar with USA too?

Pakistanis know that they are isolated with china

Dear every body is with somebody. It is India which thinks she is with everybody. But it is not possible, at least Russia cant be fooled by that.

 

[wiseone2]

Dont you think the case is similar with USA too?


Dear every body is with somebody. It is India which thinks she is with everybody. But it is not possible, at least Russia cant be fooled by that.

Americans are complicated - they finance arm sales with tax payer dollars to Israel, Egypt and Pakistan. they make money selling weapons to wealthy countries

Russia is not fooled by anybody. the most important thing for Putin is Crimea/Ukraine. Pakistan cannot stand with Russia on this issue when largest market for Pakistani textiles is Western Europe

 

[#hydra#]

http://m.economictimes.com/news/int...s-declining-power/articleshow/54707750.cmscms

WASHINGTON: America is "no longer a world power" and Pakistan would move towards China and Russia if its views on Kashmir and India are not considered, Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif's envoys have said here.

"(The) US is no longer a world power. It is a declining power. Forget about it," SpecialKashmir Envoy of Sharif, Mushahid Hussain Syed was heard as saying yesterday after the conclusion of an interaction at the Atlantic Council, one of the top American think-tanks.

Syed and Shazra Mansab, another Kashmir Envoy, are in the US as part of the Pakistani effort to apprise the global community of the current situation in Kashmir and allegations of human rights violations in the Valley.

Syed has gone to the extent to warn US that Pakistan would move towards China and Russia if its views on Kashmir and India are not considered.

He was apparently responding to a question from a member in the audience after the conclusion of the 90-minute interaction during which he expressed his frustration over the lack of response to his point of view on Kashmir and India.

The remarks of Syed were not recorded on camera, but was heard prominently by those inside the room.

Thereafter, he was quick to point out China and newly perceived relationship with Russia, which he had mentioned during his interaction at the Atlantic Council.

Syed submitted a dossier of alleged human rights violation in Kashmir to Special US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Olson.

With no takers for Pakistan's Kashmir policy, Syed said China is now an important factor in South Asia and described Beijing as part of what he termed as Greater South Asia.

"There has been slow and steady building of relationship between Moscow and Islamabad," he said, referring to the joint military exercise between Pakistan and Russia.

Syed said the Putin government has for the first time agreed to sell arms to Pakistan and the US should take note of this changing regional alignment.

"Unfortunately under the Obama administration, there was a drift in American foreign policy towards our region, towards Afghanistan. There was confusion and there was a lot of flip-flops. I think, the Obama administration could not figure out this region Afghanistan and Pakistan and as a consequence this region suffered.

"With policies one step back and one step (forward), announcing surge, announcing a cut off time for exit. Asking sometime Pakistan that please we want to talk to the Taliban and then saying that we want to take on the Taliban and finally they said there would be no American troops and then they end up having 8,500 troops stationed in Afghanistan. It leaves this to the next administration," he said.

 

[dadeechi]

Is Russia’s “Deep State” Divided Over India?

http://katehon.com/article/russias-deep-state-divided-over-india

What's wrong with the Russia-India relationship?

Sep 25, 2016Ksenia Zubacheva Analysis

Moscow and Delhi may have taken each other for granted for too long. Both sides are now at a point where decisive action is required to move the relationship forward.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, December 24, 2015. Photo: AP

Given the long history of friendship between Moscow and Delhi, the decision of the Kremlin to carry out joint military exercises with Pakistan on Sept. 24 has surprised many in both India and Russia. Pakistan is a long-time rival of India and a nation that has always been a focal point of Indian foreign policy, so Russia-Pakistan joint military exercises naturally worry Delhi.

These developments show that there is a clear lack of expertise on India in Russia’s policymaking circles threatening to put the future of the Russia-India relationship at risk. A lack of understanding between Russia and India was one of the key problems raised by representatives of leading Indian think tanks that visited Russia Direct in Moscow on Friday, Sept. 23. The experts exchanged their views on the current problems facing the partnership between the long-time allies and discussed steps to make the relationship more mutually beneficial.

Accommodating each other’s interests
In geopolitics, Moscow and Delhi would appear to share a great deal in common. At least, India didn't lambast Russia for its policy in Ukraine and saw its campaign in Syria as a decisive action, explained Jayant Prasad, director general of the Institute of Defense Studies.

With Asia-Pacific becoming more and more important as a venue for future economic growth, the long-time allies should do more to coordinate their efforts in this part of the world. Hemant Krishan Singh, director general at the Delhi Policy Group, argued that the two countries need to think about finding a way to work together in the Asia-Pacific region.

Russia and India are well positioned to balance the role of powers in this region in the name of stability, as well as restore the rules-based order that is being put at risk with ongoing territorial disputes. According to Singh, Russia has underinvested in the region for too long, and now is the time to make the best of the opportunities available.

The latest controversy with the Pakistan-Russia military exercises shows that being able to understand each other’s interests is key to ensuring the partnership moves forward. “There have never been any problems. Now we see a problem being created. We start with a huge advantage – we should use that,” said T.C.A. Rangachari, distinguished fellow at Vivekananda International Foundation. According to him and many of his colleagues, the lack of knowledge about each other is the direct result of a lack of media coverage in both countries.

Lack of media coverage and people-to-people exchanges
While both governments need to listen to experts, the media’s role cannot be undervalued because it is this information that plays a key role in forming expert opinions about issues.

Manjeet Nari Kripalani, executive director at the Mumbai-based Gateway House and a former journalist, pointed out that “today journalists are not able to do the things they used to do.” With no full-time Indian correspondent in Russia, as noted by the head of Eurasian Studies at Observer Research Foundation Nandan Unnikrishnan, it is virtually impossible to talk about any substantial coverage of news from Russia.

Moreover, the situation with Russian media is quite similar. At the moment, there are very few Russian journalists reporting from India and all the media channels that worked there since the period of the Soviet Union are being shut down.


What seems to be a practical solution to decrease the information gap is to boost the number of exchanges between countries’ expert and media communities

What seems to be a practical solution to decrease the information gap is to boost the number of exchanges between countries’ expert and media communities, experts agreed. This should not be an annual practice, but a regular one with permanent contacts between think tanks being established, suggested Petr Topychkanov, associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center. Prasad supported this initiative and expressed readiness to host any researchers willing to visit India for up to six months.


Boosting interest in business
Russia has traditionally been associated in the Indian public’s minds with high tech, but the question of commercialization of the vast technological achievements of Soviet and Russian scientists has always been an issue. Here an opportunity still exists for Russia and India to work together.

“This is a marriage waiting to happen,” says Nalin Surie, director general of the Indian Council for World Affairs. India could help Russian companies to address the problem of bringing their innovations to the market. “Without the economic leg the partnership will not go forward,” the expert added.

His colleague, Baldev Raj, director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, sees wonderful opportunities to work together towards the Industry 4.0 vision for changing the trajectory of global technological development. Here the cooperation between Russian and Indian innovators could pay huge dividends.

Read Russia Direct's report: "How to Warm Up Russia's Ties with India"
Meanwhile, Yulia Potemkina, a member of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, agrees that the potential of Russia-India trade and economic ties is far from being implemented and the reason for this seems to be the course that was pursued in Russian foreign policy twenty years ago when the relationship with India experienced a downturn. Today there is a gradual revival of this partnership, which requires some time.

“All ties established during the Soviet period were simply destroyed. Today we are making steps to restore these ties, first and foremost, in the economic aspect of the partnership,” she told Russia Direct.

She points out that over the last years Indian businessmen were granted special conditions with regard to receiving work permissions and doing business in Russia as well as special treatment of those working in cross-border territories, for example, in the Far East. One of the recent positive examples was a trip taken by representatives of Indian tourism firms to Russia for the purpose of examining the possibility of setting up their branches in the country.

There are steps being made by the Indian side to ease the visa regime and create more favorable conditions for Russian companies to establish their offices in India. So, both sides are making efforts, but the key obstacle seems to be financial. This, in turn, might be overcome by the emergence of new financial structures, such as the BRICS Development Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

“I think that project financing will give a new impulse to Russia-India relations,” Potemkina says, expressing her high hopes and the hopes of Indian bankers and businessmen working in Russia.


it seems rational to work in areas where progress is possible. This primarily concerns cooperation in the military and nuclear sectors, which has been taking place for many years

Topychkanov suggests that for now, it seems rational to work in areas where progress is possible. This primarily concerns cooperation in the military and nuclear sectors, which has been taking place for many years. With plans on not only building nuclear power plants in India, but also starting to work collectively with India on building plants in third countries, this might turn out to play a positive role for the future of the relationship.


It is quite clear that Delhi and Moscow have taken their partnership for granted for too long. Now it’s time to take active steps to revive communication channels and come up with ways to work together on common geopolitical and economic goals.

http://www.russia-direct.org/analysis/whats-wrong-russia-india-relationship

 

[dadeechi]

IS RUSSIA’S “DEEP STATE” DIVIDED OVER INDIA?

Andrew Korybko
Russian diplomacy in the 21st century is characterized by its trademarked balancing and mutually beneficial pragmatism. This pair of traits is difficult enough for any power to practice individually and is extra challenging to do so concurrently with the other, though Russia masterfully manages to pull this off because of its “deep state’s” consensus on the country’s grand strategic purpose in Eurasia. To avoid any misunderstandings, the “deep state” that’s being referred to is the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies that ensure long-term political stability for the state, and in Russia’s case, they’re in complete agreement about the need for Moscow to balance the various, and often times competing, forces in the supercontinent in order to maintain peaceful harmony between them.

Whether it’s through military diplomacy or traditional statecraft, Russia is working hard to defuse the state-on-state tension that the US has stoked all throughout Eurasia. The world has borne witness to just how quickly Russia’s direct involvement in the Mideast totally rewrote the rules of the game in that region, just as it stands to do in East Asia as Moscow and Tokyo edge closer to signing a conclusive peace treaty with one another and resolving the “Kuril Islands dispute”. The strategic situation in Europe has reached a stalemate between Russia and the US/NATO, while events in the Arctic haven’t yet dynamically begun to develop and won’t do so until after more of the ice melts sometime in the coming future, so the only Rimland portion of Eurasia still unaccounted for by Russia’s pan-continental balancing act is South Asia, which has only recently come to the fore of Moscow’s attention in this regard.

Living The Dream
Russia enjoyed decades of fruitful friendship with India during the halcyon days of the Old Cold War, though the relationship notably weakened in intensity during the 1990s and 2000s, taking aside the unchanging constant of Russia being India’s main arms supplier. It was only in the past couple of years through the BRICS platform that Russia and India came closer together in other spheres such as the economic and investment ones, and they’re now planning to participate in the North-South Transport Corridor which aims to connect South Asian and Western European markets by means of overland routes stretching through Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia. Some commentators gleefully proclaimed the beginning of a renaissance in these two long-standing partners’ relationship, but such a belief is naively premature and doesn’t take into account the fact that Moscow is no longer New Delhi’s main international partner.

The Harsh Reality Of Realignment
The US began persistently courting India in the 1980s but didn’t start to tangibly succeed in its efforts until the election of Hindutva nationalist Narendra Modi, who was more than eager to throw India’s hat in the US’ ‘China Containment Coalition’ ring. Within the course of not even two and a half years, the same man who had at one time been sanctioned by Washington with a travel ban turned into its strongest proponent in Eurasia, committing his nominally “non-aligned” country to an unprecedented military-strategic partnership with the US. The geostrategic shift that this produced will have a profound and lasting legacy all across Eurasia, and it speaks to the fact that the international situation is markedly different in the New Cold War than it was during the old one. It might have been with an eye on this predictable eventuality that Russia lifted its arms embargo on Pakistan in2014 and rapidly moved to enter into an historic rapprochement with it, eager to also reap the benefits of Pakistan’s pivotal role as the zipper of pan-Eurasian integration in a 21st century increasingly defined by infrastructure connectivity prospects and New Silk Roads.

Sabotaging Stability
Up until the mid-September Uri Attack, Russia’s balancing act in South Asia was progressing without a hitch, and Moscow was masterfully handling both complementary vectors of its regional policy without developing any contradictions between them. The enthusiastic embrace of economic relations with India wasn’t harmed by the interest that Moscow had in selling weapons to Islamabad and conducting joint anti-terrorist operations with New Delhi’s chief rival. Everything was moving along smoothly enough until the Uri Attack took place, which then led to a preplanned chain of events that were conditioned on forcing Russia into falling into the trap of making an unnecessary choice between its two strategic partners in the region. In fact, as the author argued in a related piece, the Uri Attack and subsequently hysterical reaction to it by New Delhi had more to do with India’s relations with its ‘fellow’ BRICS members Russia and China than it did with India’s testy ties with its arch-foe Pakistan. India exploited the occasion to rail against Pakistan during the opening week of the UN General Assembly, which coincidentally happened to occur right around this time. Additionally, India vowed to “isolate” Pakistan and condemned it as an “exporter of terrorism”.

Infowar Pressures
That wasn’t all, though, since India also launched its first-ever information war against Russia in seeking to get Moscow to cancel its forthcoming joint military drills with Islamabad, a clumsy and ill-thought-out attempt which miserably failed to do anything besides damage the historical friendship between the two erstwhile socialistic states. Like the author wrote in the article that was just hyperlinked above, that might have cynically been the whole point to begin with, however, since India needed an unforgettable excuse to ‘justify’ its lightning-fast strategic reorientation towards the US. Nothing could galvanize the public so strongly against Russia and undermine decades of unquestionable trust than New Delhi deliberately manipulating its citizens’ emotions in a Bollywood-like roller coaster of drama, beginning with intelligence agency-circulated lies and ending with Moscow letting down the false and unrealistically high hopes of millions of people by carrying through on its stated word in conducting prescheduled counterterrorism drills with Islamabad. President Putin’s staunch refusal to acquiesce to Modi’s craftily issued demands and irrevocably undermine Russia’s opportunity for an historic rapprochement with Pakistan predictably prompted countless articles in the jingoistic Indian ‘media’ questioning why Russia would ‘disobey’ India and wondering whether there’s even any use to continue the once-vaunted Russian-Indian friendship.

The “Deep State” Divide
The preplanned and government-prodded overreaction of the Indian jingoists succeeded in catching Russia’s attention, just as New Delhi and its Washington ally both hoped that it would. The display of anti-Russian hostility that has been incessantly showcased all across India’s mainstream media outlets is undeniable to anybody capable enough of conducting a simple keyword search on “India” and “Russia”, and there’s no doubt at this point that the Kremlin took note of the sharp turn in rhetoric coming from its South Asian ‘partner’ and was swayed by some of its “deep state” elements into undertaking urgent damage control measures in mitigating the long-term consequences. In and of itself, there’s nothing abnormal about this, and it in practice speaks to Russia’s desire to balance relations between competing sets of partners, such as how it does with Armenia and Azerbaijan, India and China, Vietnam and China, Syria and Turkey most recently, and perhaps one day even Saudi Arabia and Iran and Japan and China. What’s so special about this particular episode of Russian diplomacy is the harsh language that was used in desperately attempting to calm the social psychosis which had come to define the Indian masses’ popular attitude towards Russia in the post-Uri manipulated information landscape, and how this approach appears (operative word) to complicate the existing course of Moscow’s South Asian policy.

Indophiles
Russian Ambassador to India Alexander Kadakin came out with a powerfully worded statement earlier this week unequivocally endorsing India’s alleged “surgical strike” against Pakistan, declaring that:

“We welcome the surgical strike. Every country has the right to defend itself… India should not be concerned at all (about the Russian-Pakistan drills) because it is a normal practice amongst states to have military exercises. This is in India's interest that we will be teaching the Pakistani army how not uses army for the terror attacks. And moreover the exercise was not held in any of the sensitive or the problematic territories or in the Pakistan Occupied Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.”

The Ambassador was apparently in such a haste to dispel the deceitful narrative that Bollywood scriptwriters had spun in convincing millions upon millions of gullible Indians that Russia is an enabling accomplice of “terrorist-exporting” Pakistan that he didn’t bother to consider that the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan discounted New Delhi’s version of events by openly stating that it “has not directly observed any firing across the LoC related to the latest incidents.” Modi also unwittingly discredited his own government by later claiming that “India has not attacked anyone” when speaking more broadly about his subjective interpretation of India’s entire post-independence history. His comments, however, were picked up in Pakistan as proof that the already suspicious “surgical strike” never happened like New Delhi narrated that it had, and that instead of commando teams sweeping across the heavily fortified Line Of Control (LOC), India just lobbed a few artillery shells and subsequently over-exaggerated what happened in order to appease the hyper-nationalist mobs that the authorities’ propaganda had produced.

Regardless of what may or may not be its factual veracity, Ambassador Kadakin’s strong statement of support for India is understandable when one considers that he is one of the many Soviet-era Indophiles still working in Russia’s “deep state” apparatus. Most of the Ambassador’s career dealt with India in one capacity or another, so it’s natural that he become sympathetic to the country after his decades of service and is the premier authority on all matters related to the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership, including the limitless benefits that this arrangement could yield for both sides if properly managed into the future. It’s for this reason why Moscow’s official top-ranking representative in the country would use such partisan language as “Pakistan-Occupied Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir” and condescendingly speak as though the Pakistani Army is a natural instrument of terrorism that’s only being restrained and guided on the path to responsible reform due to the joint military exercises with Russia. Observers shouldn’t for one minute believe that this career diplomat is necessarily expressing Moscow’s official view on the matter, but that his melodramatic statement is directed solely to the general Indian audience, which doesn’t understand any moderate language nowadays and is only receptive to extreme rhetoric.

Nevertheless, Ambassador Kadakin wouldn’t have been allowed to issue such a polemical pronouncement unless he was given authority to do so by his boss, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov. The Russian Foreign Minister understands the importance of his country’s weapons trade and nuclear energy cooperation with India, recognizing them as invaluable strategic gateways that might eventually lead to enhanced commercial engagement between the two countries. The tens of billions of dollars that Russia has reaped throughout the decades from these sorts of transactions, as well as the potential for even more mutually profitable trading and investment arrangements in the future, aren’t anything to be taken lightly, especially if incensed Indian diplomats were discretely threatening to take steps aimed at diminishing their country’s revenue flow to Russia in the coming years in response to Moscow’s joint counterterrorist drills with Islamabad. Faced with the predicament of potentially “losing” India, whether in general or at a quicker pace than Russia had initially forecasted, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov did the most reasonable and responsible thing that he knew how to do, which was to order Ambassador Kadakin to issue a strongly worded statement specifically tailored to appeal to his intended audience’s expectations in order to calm the increasingly out of control hysteria that had begun to take root in India.

Islamophiles
The Indophiles aren’t the only South Asia-related faction in the Kremlin corridors, and their once-powerful influence has actually been on the decline over the past couple of years when compared to their newly ascendant rivals, the Islamophiles. This group of foreign policy experts believes that Russia must pivot towards Pakistan in order to gain access to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which could eventually reach all the way up to central Siberia and thus connect Russia’s geographic center with the global nexus of 21st-century trade in the Indian Ocean, and potentially even link this body of water with the equally strategic Arctic Ocean one day. More relevant to present-day imperatives, however, the Islamophiles envision that the formation of a solid Russian-Pakistani Strategic Partnership could also be a tremendous boost to Moscow’s efforts for bringing peace to Afghanistan. Just like how Russian Ambassador to India Alexander Kadakin is the leader of the Indophiles, Zamir Kabulov, the former Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan and current Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan & Pakistanand the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Asia and Middle East Department is the leader of the Islamophiles.

This faction gained prominence over the years as Russia sought to contain the chaos that the US created in Afghanistan and prevent it from spilling over into Central Asia. With Kabulov at the helm, they proposed that Russia and Pakistan must partner with one another in order to most efficiently bring this about, assessing that both countries are absolutely indispensable to this process and that no lasting accord could ever be achieved without their sincere and dedicated efforts being behind it. In order to arrive anywhere near this point, both sides must bravely move past their dark history of relations and reconcile with what happened during the 1980s Soviet anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan, just like how Russia and Germany came to terms with their pasts in overcoming the much more traumatic legacy of World War II. Once both sides have come together and moved past their emotional-historical differences from that era, they can then constructively proceed with their joint vision in resolving the War on Afghanistan, with Russia managing the ‘division of labor’ that each of Afghanistan’s neighbors undertake in the their quest to bring peace to the country.

To explain, the Central Asian states aren’t officially party to what’s happening south of their borders, but their ethnic nationals there have assembled into borderland militias that defensively function as a ‘firewall’ in stopping the spread of Afghan-based terrorism. Each of the three states has a unique military-strategic relationship with Russia, as Tajikistan is in the CSTO and SCO, Uzbekistan is only in the SCO, and Turkmenistan is formally ‘neutral’, all of which complicates Russia’s “Lead From Behind” role in upholding the ‘firewall’ in Northern Afghanistan. Iran, for its part, isn’t really too involved in Afghanistan’s affairs, and its purpose in the whole conflict resolution format has mainly been to silently stay on the sidelines and not interfere. Tehran is patient enough to know that its influence in the country will probably surge in the future after India’s North-South Corridor passes through the Islamic Republic’s territory en route to the landlocked state, thus making Iran one of Afghanistan’s economic lifelines. As for China, the People’s Republic has taken the lead in forging the new Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism (QCCM) between itself, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in containing the most likely cross-border threats between them, and Beijing is also part of the four-country Afghan Peace Talks that also involve the US and Pakistan.



Concerning Pakistan, it’s obvious that Islamabad would prefer for a friendly government to take shape in Afghanistan, and it could leverage the influence of Pakistani-residing cross-border-travelling Pashtuns to this end. There’s no getting around the fact that Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group are the Pashtuns, and that there are interestingly more Pashtuns in Pakistan than in Afghanistan, so it’s absolutely impossible for Islamabad to have anything other than a front-seat position in resolving the Afghan War. Pakistan is the only actor capable of constructively influencing the relevant forces in Afghanistan and incentivizing them all to commit to peace talks, which is ever more urgent nowadays because of the spread of Daesh to the country and the disruptive effect that this will have on Afghanistan’s stability and the ongoing conflict resolution process. Aware of just how important it is that Pakistan maintains its leading role in guiding the Afghan peace process, and understanding how this directly enhances Russia’s own security interests in Central Asia, Moscow undertook the historic step of fully normalizing relations with Islamabad and moving the two sides towards a strategic partnership. Kabulov, the Russian diplomat most experienced with these intricate matters, was tasked with taking the lead in making this happen, and it’s therefore not surprising that he was also the voice that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs relied on in defending Russia’s joint antiterrorist drills with Pakistan in response to India’s heavy opposition to them.

The American-Indian Duo Hits Afghanistan
The strategy elaborated on above is reasonably sound and should in principle be sufficient for ending the Afghan War, but the problem is that the US-Indian Military-Strategic Partnership is now actively involved in undermining this process for their own ends. The US has more flexibility than India does when it comes to dealing with Afghanistan because it first and foremost is militarily occupying the country together with a scattering of allied NATO forces. Furthermore, the US also trained the Afghan military and police forces (however horribly inept they turned out to be [which could have been by design]), so it has a chance to turn a stabilized Afghanistan into center of regional unipolar influence if it had the willpower to see this vision through. It’s not to say that such a possibility would definitely succeed, but just that it does seem to have been part of Washington’s game plan from the very start. On the other hand, it can just as convincingly be argued that the US intended to turn Afghanistan into a black hole of Salafist chaos right in the center of the trans-regional pivot space of West, Central, and South Asia in order to catalyze what Brzezinski had previously taken to calling the “Eurasian Balkans”, which is essentially a divide-and-rule blueprint for geopolitically re-engineering and subsequently controlling Eurasia.

One of the main problems that this Machiavellian scenario has come up against is that all of Afghanistan’s neighbors and Russia are uniting together in stopping this threat, meaning that it might not end up being as successful as the Pentagon’s strategic planners had envisioned when the first launched the war. If one sees the writing on the wall, then it’s evidently clear that the SCO – jointly led in these efforts by Russia, China, and Pakistan – will do everything in their fullest power to prevent this from happening, rightly understanding that the complete collapse of Afghanistan poses an existential threat to each of them individually and the viability of the emerging Multipolar World Order collectively. Therefore, from the American perspective, if the chaos-incubating “Eurasian Balkans” is bound to eventually be defeated in Afghanistan, then it makes the most sense to find a way to bring its new military-strategic ally on board the peace negotiation process so as to guarantee that the prospective post-conflict reconciliation government would remain as unipolar-oriented as possible. In pursuit of this modified grand strategic objective, the US is trying hard to make India an indispensable partner of the pro-American Kabul authorities, exploiting whatever tensions it can between Afghanistan and Pakistan (and Pashtuns on both sides of the border) in order to position New Delhi as the country’s preferred ‘regional’ ‘balancing’ partner, perhaps even up to the Rubicon-crossing point of inviting India to use the Pentagon’s Afghan bases as per the possibility that the recently signed LEMOA deal creates.

The fruits of the US’ efforts to heighten India’s involvement in Afghan affairs have been mildly successful as of late, since the US, Afghanistan, and India commenced three-way talks last month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly aimed at reinforcing the perception that India is now a high-level strategic partner of American-occupied Afghanistan. A touch of stereotypically dramatic Bollywood flair was added during this time when India announced that it was opening up a costly ‘air corridor’ to Afghanistan in order to get around Pakistani transit restrictions that were impeding the two-way trade of goods between New Delhi and Kabul. There’s no way that this initiative could be economically profitable, but its salience lies in the symbolism behind it and the proof that India is willing to pay a pretty penny to show Afghans its commitment to their government’s present anti-Pakistani course. As part and parcel of the Indian-Afghan relationship, Kabul sided with New Delhi when India split up SAARC by boycotting the November meeting in Islamabad. The Afghan government’s apparent submissiveness towards India is partially due to the manufactured tensions that the CIA and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW, India’s version of the CIA) provoked over the years between Kabul and Islamabad, but it’s also somewhat attributable to the tempting long-term promise that India holds out to Afghanistan in one day becoming part of the North-South Corridor and thus circumventing Pakistan completely.

The US’ attempts to decouple Afghanistan from Pakistan structurally mirror what it has done to devastating effect when it comes to Ukraine and Russia, with India slated to take the role of the EU when it comes to the South Asian scenario. The whole purpose behind this is to turn Afghanistan into as fervent of an enemy of Pakistan as Ukraine is to Russia today. The US knows that it could then rely on its Indian “Lead From Behind” ally to fan the flames of hate as much as possible and thus keep post-conflict Afghanistan in such a weak state of indefinite uncertainty that it’s all the easier for India to influence and turn into an outpost of unipolarity, albeit a fragile one (since a stable Afghanistan would naturally gravitate back to its historic Pakistani partner). In advancing this scenario, the US is feverishly doing everything that it can to position India for a seat at the Afghan conflict resolution table, despite this being absolutely opposed by all of Afghanistan’s neighbors who know that it would further complicate an already ultra-complex situation and lessen the chances that a real peace can ever be reached. Since the Eurasian Powers will probably never let India have any formal role in this process, the US will likely rely on its fallback plan on having India wield enough de-facto influence on Kabul alongside Washington’s own (and fully enabled by it too) that it ends up having to be brought on board to some unofficial extent or another.

The Deeper Differences Between Indophiles and Islamophiles
Having elaborating in depth on the regional strategic context that the Indophiles and Islamophiles find themselves operating in, it’s now time to return back to the research’s main focus in examining the division between these two factions and explaining the deeper differences between their respective visions for how Moscow’s policy should be conducted in the increasingly important South Eurasian Rimland. It would be ideal if a balancing solution could be brainstormed, but under the aggressive conditions of India pressuring its Russian ‘friend’ to publicly choose between itself and Pakistan, it’s unlikely that a compromise can be reached which would be acceptable to either of the two camps. India is just too hyped up with encouragement from its new American ally to ever return back to the ‘good old days’ of its former non-aligned self, seeking instead to make a big fuss out of each and every pragmatic agreement that Russia and Pakistan reach in order to discretely blackmail Moscow that it’ll dump it in favor of Washington if it doesn’t walk back whatever decision that it made. Granted, there are certain limits to how far India can go with this new policy of strategic threats, and a clear distinction must be made by seasoned diplomats between New Delhi’s Bollywood bluster and sincere statements of intent, but by and large, the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership of decades past is nothing more than wishful nostalgia in the present day, and Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs must react accordingly to this new reality.

Herein lies the main shortcoming of the Indophiles. Their deeply held and long-nurtured love of all things related to India seems to have colored their judgement and blinded them from seeing the present-day situation as it objectively exists. Instead of showing shock at the unprecedentedly rapid development of the US-Indian Military-Strategic Partnership and privately condemning the Hybrid War on CPEC that’s being fought by means of Afghan terrorists and Baloch separatists, this faction of experts would rather exchange handshakes and smiles with their Indian counterparts and imagine that the magical memories of the mid-1970s Soviet-Indian Friendship are still geostrategically pertinent today. It’s always to the benefit of the multipolar world whenever Russia and India cooperate, but this mustn’t be done to the detriment of Moscow’s other Eurasian interests such as bringing peace to Afghanistan and reaffirming the globally important Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership through Moscow’s supportive defense of CPEC. It’s not to say that Russian-Indian relations are devolving into a zero-sum game as it relates to Moscow’s other partnerships with Islamabad and Beijing, but it’s obvious that this is what both Washington and New Delhi would want to happen, no matter (or perhaps because of) how destructive this would be for pan-Eurasian multipolar integration processes. What Russia needs to do in this situation is remain firm and unwavering in the red lines that its strategists have set out for it and not bend in response to Indian pressure.

Because of their adaptability in the face of India’s game-changing geostrategic pivot towards the US and their forward-thinking policy planning, the Islamophiles are distinctly at the head of Russia’s “deep state” South Asian strategy at the moment, despite the loud complaints that this elicits from the Indophiles. The fact remains that for as symbolic as Ambassador Kadakin’s statement was to the Indian press the other day about Russia’s support for Modi’s mythical “surgical strike” against Pakistan and his quips about “the Pakistan Occupied Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir” and the Pakistani Army’s inferred innate propensity for terrorism, all of this was just nothing more than words and not a single visible thing changed in the Russian-Pakistani Strategic Partnership. Russian troops still continued the joint counterterrorist drills with their Pakistani counterparts, even going as far as to train for “sabotage operations” that would ordinarily have no use against non-state actors such as terrorists but would be extremely effective against state-based military threats. The author isn’t in any way suggesting that the Russian troops are training their Pakistani partners in methods that could one day be used against India, but that the nature of terrorist threats is changing and that Moscow wants Islamabad to be properly prepared for fighting against state-like enemies such as Daesh in the future, which substantially underscores just how strong the trust is between Russia and Pakistan at this moment, irrespective of whatever the Russian Ambassador to India might publicly say in order to appease the warmongering Indian masses.

Concluding Thoughts
All “deep states” everywhere across the world are comprised of a variety of competing factions, and Russia’s is no different. Just because certain camps are rivals doesn’t automatically mean that one is the “enemy” and the other the “patriot”. Rather, both sides could be inspired by patriotism and moved to promote the policies that they sincerely feel are the best in helping their country succeed in the world. One of the reasons why Russia’s Eurasian balancing act has been so successful is because of the sagacity that Moscow’s strategists have in incorporating various components of each patriotic faction’s ideas in order to achieve a harmonious equilibrium of policy. This same principle is at play when it comes to Russia’s position towards regional rivals India and Pakistan, though because of the fact that New Delhi is pressuring Moscow to enter into a zero-sum game as regards its arch-foe and the enormous stakes that are at play, this particular balancing act might be a lot more challenging for Russia to pull off than any other has been.

In principle, nothing that Russia does should come at the expense of any of its partners’ interests, and so long as every actor that it deals with recognizes Moscow’s intent in reaching mutually beneficial outcomes in pursuit of the shared vision of a Multipolar World Order, then there isn’t any problem and everything proceeds smoothly, but as soon as ‘partners’ such as the EU and now even India begin seeing the world in a zero-sum perspective and making demands that Russia modify its sovereign policies in order to accommodate their ‘concerns’, then the whole balancing arrangement becomes at risk of falling apart. The EU was the first of Russia’s ‘partners’ to behave this way during the opening days of the New Cold War and while Kiev burned at the hands of EuroMaidan urban terrorists, and the past two years have paid testimony to just how troublesome of a policy this US-inspired move has been for Russian-EU relations. The same disastrous template is at legitimate risk of being repeated in South Asia when it comes to India, since New Delhi – egged on by the US just like Brussels was – is on the verge of fundamentally transforming the established model of Russian-Indian relations.

Russia would prefer not to operate under zero-sum conditions with any of its partners, but if pressed to do so with and by India, then the Indophiles’ well-intentioned approach inadvertently becomes one of appeasement to blackmail at the expense of positive relations with Pakistan and potential progress on reaching a solution to the Afghan War. The Islamophiles, on the other hand, are much better attuned for dealing with India in the zero-sum reality that New Delhi’s American ally is forcing upon both of them, and if India is indeed planning to ‘dump’ Russia from its previous position as the country’s ‘privileged partner’, then Russia might as well prepare for this eventuality and not unnecessarily lose any gains vis-à-vis Pakistan and Afghanistan in the process like it would if it adhered to the Indophiles’ inflexible and backwards-looking strategy during these changed times. If forced to choose, it’s better for Russia to pursue its Pakistani policy because of the immediate importance that the stabilization of Afghanistan would have for Russia’s southern-vectored security and the long-term benefits that this would have for connecting Siberia to CPEC.

Moreover, there are definite limits to how far and fast India can decouple itself from Russia, no matter how mutually disadvantageous this would be. Russia’s military and nuclear energy interests in India are so deeply entrenched that they can’t feasibly be rooted out in the short-term no matter how vehemently Modi may try even if the relationship suddenly turned real sour and the US ordered him to do so. On top of that, both Russia and India have their own self-interested reasons for cooperating on the North-South Corridor, so it’s unrealistic for this trans-Eurasian megaproject to fall victim to even the worst deterioration of bilateral relations. If the Indians want to make Russia just “another Great Power among many”, then Moscow really doesn’t have all that much to lose, since it’s already not receiving any preferential treatment compared to the US or Japan when it comes to infrastructure development and other projects inside of India. However, by continuing to entertain the Indophile faction, Russia stands to lose all of the promising strategic-security achievements that it’s reached with Pakistan and Afghanistan thus far, though the opposite economic variant isn’t possible with the Islamophiles towards India since the gains can’t be lost so quickly (if ever at all).

India will probably continue to blow off jingoistic steam and discretely blackmail Russia from here on out, but Moscow must not cave in to the Indophiles and reverse the course that the Islamophiles have charted for it. There’s only so much that India can do to ‘punish’ Russia, and most of it is just bluster anyhow since Moscow isn’t even enjoying the same type of commercial benefits as its rivals presently are in India’s domestic economy. While it’s true that Russia could profit through the future promulgation of some sort of preferential economic agreement with India, this wouldn’t be too qualitatively different from the benefits that it will already reap through the North-South Corridor, which in fact might even prompt such a deal out of the mutually self-interested considerations of both sides regardless of whatever the state of their bilateral political relations might be by that time. Relatedly, Russia would then be able to harness the fruits of both the North-South Corridor and CPEC since it wouldn’t be sacrificing the latter for nothing. From the reverse perspective and unlike the potential gains that it could continue to receive from India, Russia would be unable to recoup any strategic-security losses that it incurs relative to Pakistan and Afghanistan if it doesn’t maintain its Islamophile policy in South Asia, which should be a convincing reason enough to stay the course and balance against the US’ new Indian ally.

http://katehon.com/article/russias-deep-state-divided-over-india